To the Place Where Your True Love Resides
by gotta-rite
Summary: Shall the memory of Erik poison the blissful ever after?


**For admirers of the Vicomte de Chagny, I present this romantic tale…**

**To the Place Where Your True Love Resides**

**©2010 Gotta-rite**

**With credit to Gaston Leroux for what's his.**

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"Raoul," Christine's musical voice addressed her husband.

He turned his face to look at her; still a young man, fair haired and handsome. She was standing a few paces away at the sunlit window, the sea breeze teasing her hair. "Yes, my darling?"

"Do you remember how it was," she said in that whimsical way of hers, "back in Paris, before that awful time?"

"What awful time?" he said, beginning to frown.

"You know," his lovely wife cajoled him, stepping over to where he sat in a comfortable armchair, reading a paper. "That terrible business with Erik."

Raoul turned back abruptly to his newspaper. "I try not to think about that."

Christine was not to be dissuaded. "But you must think about it sometimes, dear," she went on, coming to meet him and sitting down on a little velvet stool at his feet. "We wouldn't be here now if it weren't for that."

"It's in the past, my darling."

"Yes I know," the young woman agreed in a solemn tone. "But I can't help remembering."

Raoul tried not to let his feelings enter his voice. "We agreed not to talk about it, didn't we?" he said patiently, looking up from his paper again.

"Did we?"

"Yes," Raoul reminded her with a nod. "When we first arrived here. You said it wasn't a fitting subject for our new home."

"Oh, well of course, that's right," his young wife sighed.

The newspaper rustled as Raoul lifted it again to his sight and Christine sat in thoughtful silence in front of him. Her fingers played with the lace at her wrists and touched the golden band she wore in honor of her husband. In time Raoul laid down his paper again and regarded her. Her hair was a soft cascade of golden curls.

"You may talk about it all the same however, if you feel you must," he kindly told her.

"No, it doesn't matter," Christine replied, looking up with complacent eyes. "It's only that I sometimes wonder whether there might not have been a better way…"

"I don't think so," Raoul answered shortly. "The fellow was mad."

"He was terribly lonely, that's all," his wife quietly replied.

"He was mad," Raoul said, leaning forward to take Christine's hand. "He didn't love you Christine."

"No, I know that. But he did feel something for me. He must have."

"Lust," Raoul supplied.

"No, it wasn't that," the young woman objected, withdrawing from her husband's touch. "It was something deeper than that. A sort of need."

"Well," said Raoul, leaning back in his chair with a disinterested look, "he seemed to overcome that need in the end."

His wife gave a little frown. "I wish you wouldn't be so flippant about it, Raoul."

"Christine, it was more than ten years ago!" the young man complained in as patient a tone as he could muster. "Is it worth troubling yourself about it now? Are we not happy?" He looked at his wife with questioning fondness. "Are you not happy here with me, Christine?"

"You know I am, dear," she quietly responded.

"Then let's not talk about that brigand any more," Raoul said, leaning forward once more to grasp both of her small hands. "He is gone now, my darling. At least we shan't see him here in any case, Christine. Not ever."

Christine's brow creased earnestly, looking down at her husband's hands. "That's what troubles me, Raoul," she said in a worried tone. "It seems so dreadful, so terribly sad."

"What? That a villain like that should not step foot in this place?" Raoul asked, surprised and offended. "Do you want the Almighty to allow anyone in?"

"I don't know. It's simply that – "

"You're mad, Christine," Raoul declared, grasping her hands earnestly and staring into her eyes as if he would fix her thoughts upon him alone, "as mad as _he_ was if you're taking that tack."

"But you didn't know him as I did, Raoul," the young woman argued. "He was not altogether bad. He was – "

"He was a murderer," stated Raoul clearly, staring her keenly in the eye, "and a kidnapper, and an extortionist. That is what he was Christine."

"Yes but – "

"Have you forgotten how we came to be here?" he said, shuffling impatiently in his chair. "Have you forgotten what he did to us?"

"No," she murmured forlornly.

"Well then, I don't know what else to say to you," Raoul shook his head. His manly hands were still clasping those of his wife and so he stroked her fingers calmly while she sat with head bowed. After a few moment's silence, she lifted her gaze and spoke again.

"He never wanted it, Raoul," she said quietly. "He never meant to do us harm."

"He simply made a mistake, I suppose," Raoul said, raising a cynical eyebrow.

"Not exactly, no. But it was not entirely his own doing."

Raoul dropped her hands and stood up. "I don't know how you can say that putting that noose around my neck was not his own doing," he said, picking up the newspaper he had laid aside and carrying it away to the sunny window seat which looked out upon the crystal blue ocean. Christine stood up hurriedly to follow him.

"Don't speak of that Raoul!" she implored, holding her hands to her ears.

"No, Christine," Raoul said, turning suddenly on his heel to face her, his eyes glowing with constrained fire. "You have brought it up, and now you must hear it!" Christine let her hands fall, resigned and sorrowful. "When I was lying in that dungeon after he had got your promise, did you think for a moment that he would ever set me free?"

"He promised," was all that she could say.

"Of course he promised!" Raoul said, tossing the newspaper upon a nearby table in a frustrated gesture. "But it was little use, Christine, because he knew then that I was already dead."

"Oh please, Raoul, don't!" Christine cried, putting her hands again to her ears.

"And you?" Raoul continued unmercifully but not without a tone of compassion as he stepped closer to his unhappy bride. "How long did you think he would really keep you alive, knowing all the trouble you would give him?"

"He wanted a wife, a_ living_ wife!" she argued.

"But a dead wife would serve just as well if she would not have him," Raoul stated in finality.

"No! He didn't mean to do what he did."

"You really must stop believing these stories, Christine!" Raoul urged her, stepping quickly forward to take the wayward girl in his arms. "That fellow was a monster," he said soothingly, holding her cheek against his chest. "If you had never learned the truth about _my_ end, he would still have ended _your_ life given time."

"It was only because I reacted so badly," Christine's muffled voice rose to his ears. "If I had been calmer – "

"If you had been calmer," Raoul softly intoned, stroking her hair, "it simply would have taken a little longer, perhaps a week or a few days, before he found a reason to kill you. It was never in his heart to keep you alive."

"That's not true," Christine said, drawing back and resting her hands lightly on Raoul's chest. "Erik wanted to be like normal people, Raoul. He wanted a second chance."

"A fellow like that has no second chances," Raoul shook his head gently. "And he showed that. He murdered us both for his own selfishness and then he murdered his own soul. It's justice that he is gone."

"Justice for you perhaps, Raoul," she returned with simple honesty, "but not for me. I never wanted to see him die. I wanted him to be happy."

Raoul drew her once again into his calming embrace. "Well, that's more than he wanted for you, my darling."

"No," she replied, her face laid against her husbands chest. "It was because he wanted me to be happy that he murdered me."

"How can you say that?" Raoul asked in a genuinely puzzled tone.

Christine did not lift her face but wrapped her arms a little tighter about Raoul's manly frame. "Because of what he cried out as he strangled me," she quietly intoned. "'Go, sweet angel! Go to the place where your true love resides!'"


End file.
